This ebook edition first published in the UK in 2012 by Usborne Publishing Ltd., Usborne House, 83-85 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8RT, England. www.usborne.com
Text copyright © Anne-Marie Conway, 2012
The right of Anne-Marie Conway to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Cover photography: floral decoration by Purestock/Alamy;
Cloud and rippling water by Digital Vision.
Title lettering by Stephen Raw. Butterfly illustrations by Joyce Bee.
The name Usborne and the devices are Trade Marks of Usborne Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or used in any way except as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or loaned or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ePub ISBN 9781409541738
Batch no. 02507-13
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Sneak Preview of Forbidden Friends by Anne-Marie Conway
Acknowledgements
About the Author
We’d been living in our new house in Oakbridge for just over a week and I hated everything about it. When Mum said we were moving to the country, I’d imagined a pretty, old-fashioned cottage with roses round the door – I got the old bit right, but it was dark and gloomy with massive spiders, and cobwebs so thick it was impossible to see light through them. We’d spent every spare minute trying to get it sorted, but it still gave me the creeps.
“New house, new job, new beginning,” Mum kept saying, doing her best to sound cheery. But the “new beginning” bit was hard – at least, it was for me.
It was alright for Mum – she’d lived in Oakbridge before I was born so it wasn’t really a new beginning for her anyway. But I’d barely had time to finish Year Seven before I was packing my old life up in a stack of brown cardboard boxes and leaving everything I knew behind me.
“I still don’t get why we had to move here in the first place,” I grumbled, sitting down to lunch that first week – pizza again, served on an upturned crate. We’d had pizza every day since we arrived. Hot pizza for lunch, and cold leftover pizza for tea. I never thought I could get sick of pizza – but seriously!
Mum looked across at me, frowning. “What do you mean, you don’t understand? How many times do I have to keep explaining?”
“I know, I know, ‘it’s a great job, too good to pass up’, but you were happy at your old job, weren’t you? And what about me? What am I supposed to do without Laura? And what about my wildlife photography course? You know how much I loved going…”
“Look I’m really sorry, Becky.” Mum pressed her fingers to the side of her head as if she was in pain. “I know it’s difficult for you, but I’m sure Laura will come and visit later on in the summer, and there’ll be loads more opportunities for you to take wildlife photos around here.” She started to clear away the pizza. “Jobs like this don’t come along very often, you know, not when you get to my age. I’ll be running my own department. It’s a huge step up.”
We were so busy those first few days I didn’t have much time to think about what I was going to do once Mum actually started her great new job. It was the summer holidays – the hottest July on record, the weatherman kept saying – and six empty weeks stretched out in front of me. We weren’t connected to the internet yet, and I could barely get a phone signal for long enough to call anyone. Talk about being stuck in the middle of nowhere.
We worked our way through all the big boxes the first weekend we arrived. We’d been unpacking for over three hours solid and I was just about ready to collapse from heat exhaustion when Mum’s old friend, Stella, popped by to help us.
“Tracy Miller, I can’t believe you’re back!” she cried, bursting in and throwing her arms round Mum. “It is so good to see you. And you must be the beautiful Becky!” She turned round to face me, grabbing hold of my hands and squeezing them tight.
I shook my head, blushing. No one had ever called me beautiful before. Neat brown hair, a turned-up nose and freckles don’t exactly add up to beautiful. Cute maybe – but not beautiful.
“We go back years, your mum and me,” Stella went on, her eyes full of mischief. “I’ve known her since primary school, can you believe…?”
I couldn’t imagine my mum at primary school. She was always so sensible and grown up. More like a head teacher than anything else. “Was she naughty?” I asked, knowing what the answer would be. “Naughty?” Stella roared. “Scared of her own shadow, your mum. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”
I liked Stella straight away. She was the same age as Mum but she seemed years younger. She had wavy brown hair with white-blonde streaks and she never stopped smiling. She swept into our dark, empty house, filling it with noise and laughter. When she got fed up with unwrapping cups and saucers, and cleaning out cupboards, she put on an old disco CD and danced around the room – grabbing me and Mum in turn and swinging us round until we were dripping with sweat and out of breath.
“It’s too hot, Stella,” Mum groaned, pushing her away, but I could tell she didn’t mind.
“We used to dance all night,” cried Stella. “And I don’t remember you complaining back then!”
“It was you who used to dance all night,” said Mum, laughing. “I was the one trying to drag you home! But I have missed you,” she added. “It’s been far too long.”
“I’ve missed you too, Trace,” said Stella, serious for a moment.
It was great to meet someone from Mum’s past. She’d never really talked much about why she left Oakbridge.
She split with my dad and moved away before I was born, and any mention of him – or “that time” as she called it – was guaranteed to bring on one of her headaches. I know it sounds weird, but meeting Stella was like getting a tiny step closer to finding out what really happened back then.
“Why don’t I ask my son Mack to show you around?” she said to me as she was leaving. “He’ll only drive me mad getting under my feet all summer if he stops at home!”
I nodded, smiling, although inside my tummy clenched up. I couldn’t imagine going off around the village with some boy I’d never met before.
There were quite a few visitors after that. Stella must’ve passed the word round that Mum was back. That’s the thing with small villages – it doesn’t take long for news to spread. At the end of the week, someone called Mrs. Wilson came by from the church. She was small and bony and all buttoned up, even though it was easily the hottest day so far.
“Are the two of you planning to come to church?” she asked primly, while Mum poured us all a cup of tea. I noticed she’d used the best cups and a proper teapot. “There’s a very nice service next Sunday if you’d like to attend.”
Mum half-nodded. “We’ll certainly do our best, although I’m due to start my new job tomorrow and what with all the unpacking and everything…” She trailed off and we sat in silence for a moment.
Mrs. Wilson gave me the creeps big time. There was something sour about her – like she’d eaten too many lemons. She kept staring at me in this really intense way, and when Mum offered her a cookie she muttered something random about gluttony and sin. I could just imagine Laura saying, What is that lady’s problem? and I had to stop myself from snorting into my cup.
“How do you think you’ll like Oakbridge, Becky?” she asked after a bit. “It’s not the most exciting place for a girl of your age.”
“She’ll be fine,” said Mum quickly. “It’s just the two of us, so Becky’s used to her own company, and she’ll soon make friends when school starts. I’ve enrolled her at Farnsbury High; it’s supposed to be very good.”
Mrs. Wilson sniffed. “There’s no discipline these days, not like when I was at school.”
When was that then? I felt like saying. In the Ice Age?
Mrs. Wilson ended up staying for another cup of tea, prattling on about the house and how old it was and other boring stuff like that. Mum kept looking at her watch and clearing her throat in a really obvious way, but it didn’t seem to make the slightest difference.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve still got some unpacking to do,” I said, first chance I got, and escaped upstairs.
I couldn’t stand my new room. It was small and dark and airless, even with the window open. But it wasn’t the size, or the lack of light that bothered me so much, it was the way it felt. Leaving my old room behind was one of the hardest things about moving; like losing a part of who I was. I tried to explain to Mum but she didn’t get it. She said that by the end of the summer I’d be so settled, I wouldn’t even remember what my old room looked like.
The night before we moved had been the worst. I’d started to think about all the people who would live in my room after I’d gone, and how it wouldn’t be mine any more, and how no one would know I’d spent the first twelve years of my life there. At some point I got up and scratched Becky Miller into the window sill. I used an old nail from the back of my door, where my dressing gown used to hang. I spent ages scraping away at the wood until the letters were really deep. I just wanted to make sure a tiny part of me was left behind, even if it was only my name.
I didn’t really have any more unpacking to do; it was just an excuse to get away from Mrs. Wilson. I lay on my bed listening to her and Mum talking. They were standing by the front door, and Mrs. Wilson was asking Mum about church again. I couldn’t make out what Mum was saying back – her voice was too quiet – but I knew she’d be trying to get rid of her. She’d been really funny about visitors dropping by, apart from Stella. She said it was one of the things she hated most about village life: the way people just assumed they could turn up, without calling first to make sure it was okay.
I found the box that night, much later, after Mrs. Wilson had gone home. It was wedged under Mum’s bed with a load of other stuff – it probably got shoved under there when we were unpacking. I was looking for a magazine to read and the only way I could reach the one I wanted was by pulling the box right out.
It looked like one of those old-fashioned jewellery boxes, the kind with music and ballet dancers twirling around inside. It was made of very dark, shiny wood, with the prettiest gold pattern engraved on the lid and a tiny padlock. I ran my hands over the surface. It didn’t look new but I was sure I’d never seen it before.
I could hear Mum in the living room. She was ironing her shirt for the morning. She was going to be in charge of a brand-new department at Hartons, this big firm of accountants, so she had to look as smart as possible. I thought about taking the box down, to ask her if I could have it – but I opened it first, just to see if there was anything interesting inside.
I don’t know what I expected to find – Mum’s old wedding ring maybe, or some earrings I could borrow – but there was nothing in there, not even music and dancers, just a tatty piece of fabric and an old photo. The fabric was soft; bits of thread fraying from the edges. There was a message stitched across the middle: neat little hand-sewn crosses spelling I LOVE YOU in faded red cotton. The kind of thing you make when you’re at primary school.
I placed it back in the box and picked up the photo. It was small and slightly old-fashioned, and I knew there was something strange about it straight away. It was a picture of Mum lying in a hospital bed with a baby in her arms. A baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket. Mum was smiling at the camera, her eyes shining with excitement. I couldn’t believe how young she looked. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look that young or that happy.
I sat there clutching the photo, a million questions piling up in my head. Because I know about my own birth. Not much, but enough to realize that something was wrong. I know that I came too quickly; that there was no time to get to the hospital. It was the end of June, boiling hot, just like this summer. I was born at home and I stayed at home – the midwife said she’d never seen a baby in so much of a hurry to come out. Just me and Mum, at home. No hospital. No pink blanket. Not unless they made Mum go to the hospital, after the birth, just to make sure we were both okay? Not unless they made her go and she somehow forgot to tell me?
I turned the photo over, my hand trembling suddenly. There was a date in the top right-hand corner. A date written in Mum’s small, neat handwriting. The words and numbers jumped about in front of my eyes and I had to blink a few times to refocus.
April 23rd 1986
Twelve years before I was born.
I don’t know how long I sat there trying to make sense of it all, but at some point I heard Mum come out of the lounge and the light went off downstairs. I dropped the photo back in the box, shoved it under her bed and ran down the hall to my room. I couldn’t face Mum right then, not without bursting into tears, or blurting out something stupid.
It was impossible to get to sleep. I lay on top of my covers, thinking about the box, stuffed under Mum’s bed, waiting to go off like a bomb. I tried to dream my best falling-asleep dream, but it didn’t work. It’s the one where there’s a knock at the door and I open it to find my dad standing there. His face isn’t clear exactly but he says, “Becky Miller, I’ve been searching for you for the last twelve years!” And I say, “It’s okay, Dad, better late than never, eh?” I’m not really sure what he says after that because I’m usually asleep by then.
I’ve been dreaming the meeting-my-dad dream for as long as I can remember – it never fails to send me off to sleep – sometimes I’m asleep before I’ve even finished talking to him. But lying there that night in the suffocating heat, the only image I could conjure up was a baby girl wrapped in a soft, pink blanket. Who was she? How could Mum hide something so important from me? Keep it secret for all these years?
The next morning, I stayed in bed until I heard her leave for work. I was determined to ask her about the photo, but there was no way I could bring it up just before she set off for the first day at her important new job. I was worried she might react really badly; she usually did when I asked her about the past. Or that she might just refuse to tell me anything at all.
As soon as I heard the front door close behind her, I got up and trailed downstairs. There was a note on the kitchen table and some money.
Didn’t want to wake you – go and explore the village, but be careful. I’ll be home at 5.30. Mum x
The note really annoyed me. How could she write something so normal when she was hiding such a big secret? I turned the piece of paper over and scribbled my own note on the back.
Who is the baby in the photo?
Is she your baby?
Where is she now?
Is she with my dad?
If she is yours, why don’t I know about her?
What else don’t I know?
I was just getting on to question number seven when the doorbell rang. It was so loud it totally freaked me out. I had this sudden panicky feeling that it might be my dad, I don’t know why. I guess it was the whole thing – moving house and finding the photo and being in a strange place by myself. Or maybe it was just because I was so tired.
My mum and dad met in Oakbridge when they were really young. Mum was only sixteen and he was her first proper boyfriend. I had no idea what happened to him after they broke up; whether he stayed in Oakbridge or moved somewhere else. He could have been on Mars for all I knew. But if he was still living in the village, I was sure he would’ve heard that we were back by now.
The bell rang again but I stayed where I was, holding my breath. I could see the door from where I was standing. Someone was peeking through the letter box. I shrank back so they wouldn’t know I was there. It was probably only Stella, or sour Mrs. Wilson from the church, but I couldn’t face any visitors. Not this morning.
“Get a grip, Becky,” I said out loud, taking a breath to calm myself down. I waited another minute or so and then went out to the hall. There was a scrap of paper lying on the doormat. It was another note. This one was written on lined paper, the kind you get in exercise books, and it said:
Meet me at the Butterfly Garden – any time after eleven this morning.
I peered through the window above the front door, but whoever had left it was long gone. I wondered if it was from Stella’s son Mack. She said she was going to send him round when she left the other day, but leaving me a note to meet up when we didn’t even know each other seemed a bit weird. I had no idea where the Butterfly Garden was for a start – and even if I managed to find it, how would I know who he was?
I got busy in the kitchen tidying up a bit for Mum, but even with the radio on, the house felt too quiet. I couldn’t stop thinking about the photo. I’d always longed for a sister. I used to nag Mum about it all the time, as if she could pop out and buy one from the shops, or make one appear just like that. She wasn’t even with my dad by then, but I still thought she could somehow magic a baby out of thin air.
It was just that I hated being an only child; it was so lonely – especially since we’d moved. When I’m older I’m going to have a massive family. I want at least four children, two girls and two boys, and loads of pets. I want dogs and cats and rabbits and maybe even a bird. I want my house to be filled up with noise and mess and loud, blaring music – the louder the better as far as I’m concerned.
I washed up the dishes and swept the floor, but it was still only half nine – eight hours until Mum was due back from work. Every time I stopped to listen, the silence seemed to grow louder. I had to get out. I knew Mum would have kittens if I went off to meet a total stranger at some random place I’d never been, but what did she expect me to do, stuck here for the entire summer without a single friend? And anyway, Stella seemed so nice, it wasn’t as if her son was going to be some crazed psycho-killer.
It didn’t take me long to get ready. I stuffed Mum’s note and the mystery note in my pocket, grabbed my phone and set off just after ten. I started to feel better as soon as I left the house – like I could breathe again. The sun was already high in the sky, but I figured there was still an hour or so to go before it became too unbearable. I stopped in at the Jacksons’ village shop to buy a Coke and ask for directions. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson had lived in Oakbridge their entire lives, so I was pretty sure they’d know where the Butterfly Garden was.
Mr. Jackson was at the counter, sorting through some photos of their new grandson Albert. “We’re in for another scorcher by the looks of things,” he said in his gruff, grizzly-bear voice. He’d said the exact same thing when I’d come in a few days earlier to buy some headache pills for Mum. Mrs. Jackson came bustling out of the back, carrying some tins of soup.
“Hello, my love, how are you getting on with the unpacking?”
“It’s more or less sorted,” I said. “My mum’s starting her new job this morning so I’m going to meet a friend at the Butterfly Garden. Do you know the way from here?”
Mr. and Mrs. Jackson glanced at each other. “The Butterfly Garden, you say?” said Mr. Jackson, frowning slightly. He had one of those small fans facing the till and he kept stooping down so that the air could blow on his face. He stayed there cooling off for a minute while I paid for my Coke, then he shuffled round the counter and led me out of the shop.
“Walk straight past the green,” he said slowly, pausing to catch his breath. “Then turn right at Amble Cross and keep going until you come to a tiny lane near the bottom, called Back Lane. The signpost is more or less hidden behind a load of blackberry bushes, but if you follow the bushes all the way round you shouldn’t have too many problems finding it.”
Oakbridge was so different from where we’d lived before. It was about a hundred times smaller for a start. There was no cinema or big supermarkets or anything like that. So far I’d spotted the Jacksons’ shop, a pub called The Eagle’s Nest and the church. I knew there was a primary school hiding down one of the lanes, but that seemed to be it, as far as I could tell. No wonder Mum had left the first chance she got.
I’d only taken a few steps towards the green when Mrs. Jackson called out to me. She was standing at the front of the shop, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Look after yourself, love,” she said. “Mind yourself near that lake.”
I was about to ask her what lake she was talking about – there was no lake in Oakbridge, not as far as I’d seen – but she was already back in the shop. And what did she mean, “mind yourself”? I started to burn up, even though there was no one there to see. Mum must’ve told Mrs. Jackson that I can’t swim; that I’m terrified of water. Mum can’t swim either, she’s even worse than me – but it’s the one thing I never tell anyone. I was so furious I thought I was going to cry for a minute. Mum was obviously better at keeping her own secrets than she was at keeping mine.
Blinking back tears, I stomped off down Amble Cross, squishing myself into the hedges every time a car drove past. The sun beat down, prickling the backs of my knees. Further along, near the bottom of the road, there was a row of old-fashioned cottages, small and neat with little square gardens and lace curtains in the windows. There was something so perfect about them I felt my stomach twist up. I bet the people who lived behind such pretty curtains had no nasty surprises hiding underneath their beds.
Mr. Jackson was right. It wasn’t difficult to find the Garden. The tiny lane at the end of Amble Cross was more of a pathway than an actual road, and tucked away at the bottom of it was a small cottage with a faded wooden sign at the front:
Welcome to Oakbridge Butterfly Garden.
I’d obviously never been to the Butterfly Garden before – I’d never even been to Oakbridge until we moved here (apart from when I was in my mum’s tummy, which doesn’t count) – but there was something familiar about the whole place. Something really familiar. I shivered in the heat. The cottage and the sign, even the stepping stones leading up to the door…it was all so familiar, like a dream, or a faraway memory. I stood there for a moment, trying to understand what it could mean.
And then I went in.
“Have you been here before?” The lady at the entrance held out a map and some leaflets. She was very old; every inch of her face covered in spidery wrinkles.
I shook my head, half shrugging. “No, I don’t think so. No, I’m sure I haven’t, although there is something very familiar about it.”
“That’s funny,” she said. “I was just thinking the same about you.” She peered at me over her glasses. “Mind you, when you get to my age everyone starts to look familiar.”
I smiled to be polite and carried on past, through to the tiny shop selling butterfly souvenirs and ice creams. A different lady, just as old, stamped my hand with a small, red-inked butterfly.
“Entry is free for under fourteens,” she explained, “but we do like to keep track of how many people visit each day.”
At the back of the shop I saw there was a small door with a sign above it saying Butterfly Garden This Way. I ran my fingers over the inky red butterfly on my hand.
“We’ve got twenty-four species this summer,” the lady went on. “We might even have a Silver-studded Blue.”
“Erm, thanks,” I said, edging away. And with the map in one hand and my phone in the other, I used my foot to push open the door.
Walking into the Butterfly Garden was like stepping into the Tardis, or waking up in the middle of a Disney movie. It was incredible to think that somewhere so magical and enchanting could be hidden away down a tiny lane in Oakbridge of all places. I couldn’t believe Mum never mentioned it when she told me we were moving back here.
Wild, grassy meadows stretched as far as I could see, dotted with flowers so bright they didn’t look real. There were old, cobbled paths weaving their way through the tall grasses. And right at the bottom, misty in the early morning sun, was the most beautiful lake I’d ever seen. I thought of Mrs. Jackson and her warning, and my face grew hot again.
A small yellow butterfly settled for a second on my shoulder and then flew off again. It seemed to be saying Follow me, so I chased after it down one of the stony paths. Soon I was surrounded by yellow butterflies and I lost sight of the one I’d been following. I imagined they all belonged to the same family; lots and lots of butterfly brothers and sisters – and a mum and dad who had to find more and more ingenious ways to tell them apart.
I sat down on a bench in the shade and tried to send a text to Laura. I didn’t say anything about the photo of the mystery baby, just that I was in the most amazing place and that I missed her. Laura and I have been friends ever since we took up wildlife photography together at the beginning of Year Seven. We’d sailed through the basic module and were just about to start the advanced course when Mum dropped the bombshell that we were moving. I couldn’t wait to show Laura the Butterfly Garden when she came to visit. Oakbridge itself might be the most boring village in the universe, but she would absolutely love it here.
A delicate orange and black butterfly landed on a flower by the bench. It was the perfect picture to send with the message. I turned my phone towards the flower as carefully as I could, trying to focus without scaring the butterfly away. It was such a great shot. I held my breath and leaned in even closer.
“Boo!”
A girl jumped in front of my phone, hands on her hips, posing for the picture. She was about my age, with a tangle of long, dark hair and flashing brown eyes.
“Hey, what did you do that for?” I shrank back, closing my phone. “You’ve scared it away now.”
“Oh, you don’t want to bother with a boring old Monarch. It’s easily the most common butterfly in the Garden.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and fixed me with a stare – challenging me to disagree.
“What are you, an expert or something?” I muttered.
She grinned, nodding. “Yes, I am actually. I know everything about butterflies. Go on, ask me anything you want. I bet you didn’t know that butterflies can taste with their feet or that the fastest butterfly can get up to speeds of twelve miles per hour. And do you know what the Ancient Greeks used to believe?” She paused dramatically, leaning towards me. “That butterflies represent the souls of the dead.”
I sat there, speechless. I mean, what could I say to that? There was something wild about her, standing in front of me, wearing a faded blue sundress, her skin golden-brown. Like she’d already spent weeks and weeks outdoors, even though the holidays had only just started.
“I’m Rosa May by the way,” she went on. “Also known as Fish.”
“Why Fish?” I said, finding my voice finally.
She pulled me up from the bench. “Come on, I’ll show you!” She literally dragged me towards the lake, laughing as she tore through the long grass. I pulled back, shaking her hand off my arm.
“What’s the matter?” She turned back and grabbed me again. “What are you waiting for?”
I hesitated for a second, and then I let her pull me along. I don’t know why – she was just so forceful. We ran together for a bit and then she raced ahead, her hair streaming out behind her. She ran all the way down to the edge of the lake and dived straight in without stopping. I caught up and then took a few steps back. What was she doing? No one else was swimming.
I clutched my side, out of breath, waiting for her to come up, but the water was still, not even a ripple. I looked around. There were a few people wandering past, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else had even noticed. I didn’t know what to do.
“Come on,” I said quietly. It was taking too long. “Come on.” I began to feel sick. “Come on!” I said a bit louder, my voice panicky, and then all of a sudden she was there, surging up from the bottom of the lake, water spraying in every direction as she broke the surface.
“It’s beautiful!” she called out. “Why don’t you come in?” I shook my head, feeling dizzy, and stepped back from the edge.
“I’m meeting someone,” I called. “See you around.”
I started to head back the way we’d come, anxious to get away, but she was out of the water and by my side in seconds. “Wait a sec, slow down! You haven’t even told me your name.” She stopped suddenly and bent over, shaking her head like a dog.
“Watch it, you’re splashing me!”
“It’s only water! Hey, you’re not like that witch in The Wizard of Oz, are you? You’re not going to melt in a puddle at my feet?”
“Of course I’’”